


Crimson Sky

by Moonrose91



Series: Gift Verse [16]
Category: Marvel (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Betrayal, Gen, M/M, So...so....SO much, What Can Go Wrong Will Go Wrong
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-09
Updated: 2012-09-09
Packaged: 2017-11-13 21:19:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,540
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/507823
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Moonrose91/pseuds/Moonrose91
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes, even the best of intentions can go horribly wrong.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Crimson Sky

Clint glanced at his phone for the second time in the span of a minute and Steve was concerned.

The Avengers had been actively working together for almost a year now, though Clint had disappeared about five months ago for about a month, along with Agent Coulson, though at the time he wasn’t their liaison.

After causing four to have mental breakdowns (Steve is still not sure how they managed to do that) Agent Coulson was made their liaison between them and SHIELD, but didn’t live in the Tower, despite Tony trying every trick he knew to get the man in there, including buying his apartment building and trying to see if he could legally evict Agent Coulson only to find that said agent didn’t live there anymore.

Specifically, he never had.

The apartment was a ‘burner’. A place to go to once and never again, though the agent had admitted to using it a few times before meeting Clint.

However, when asked he hadn’t gotten rid of it, Agent Coulson answered that it would look odd, someone giving up an apartment in New York, in a good section of the city, near Central Park, considering he said he saw people kill for less.

Steve isn’t sure if Agent Coulson is being serious or not, mostly because he doesn’t spend as much time around the agent as he should.

It’s just…

It is slightly creepy to have the agent sort-of have some sort of…freak-out. It is slightly creepy to see a man who is unflappable suddenly become a squealing tweenager at a Bieber concert, compared to his normal self.

Steve sighed softly and scrubbed his hands over his face.

Clint had checked his phone two more times during his mental rant.

“Does anyone but me think that this entire fight was way too easy?” Tony asked suddenly.

Clint merely pressed his lips together more, almost seeming to glare at the screen. “Where’s Agent?” Tony asked.

“Busy,” Clint answered, absently.

Tony stared at him as Clint shut the phone and pocketed it, though he was obviously going to be pulling it out in a few short seconds. “How do you know that?” Tony asked and Clint flipped out his cell phone.

“Told me. Drop it Stark,” Clint responded shortly, fingers drumming on the cell phone.

“Don’t get snippy with me. What is with you anyway? You’ve been abnormally tense since you got back from whatever weird voodoo thing you did,” Tony snapped.

“His brother appeared out of nowhere,” Natasha answered and Clint glowered at her violently.

“Stop telling my secrets,” he stated, glancing at his cell phone, again.

“We shouldn’t have secrets. We need to know those types of things. If he’s threatening you…” Steve responded before Natasha could answer, only to be interrupted by Clint stating, “It’s not him killing _me_ I’m worried about.”

Natasha huffed softly and muttered something unsavory in Russian, which Clint responded to, also in Russian.

“Who then?” Bruce asked and Clint stilled.

“Who has you so worried you’ve been as brittle as thin ice, snapping at the smallest provocation, spending an unhealthy amount of time in the archery range and having Agent Coulson glare at you and hiss at you in what I would consider almost to be a lover’s tiff when you are away from the others?” he continued, earning stares from the members not in Asgard (aka, gone to go try and pry information from their estranged brother about the most recent magic cult user they had to fight off, though ‘cult’ might be inappropriate descriptive).

“Do I want to even know how you do that?” Tony asked.

“Most likely not,” Bruce responded and Clint checked his phone again, lips thinning a bit more at whatever he read.

Steve, however, was watching the way Clint was worrying.

“We’ll worry about Clint’s love life later. Again, does it seem too easy?” Tony questioned and Clint nodded sharply.

“He went down quickly, far too quickly. It was simple and easy and he didn’t resist. The fact that the Vault is down is also irking me. Normally we wouldn’t have this layover, in an office, which has agents studying an artifact that fell to Earth, but was movable, unlike Thor’s hammer. It feels like a setup and I don’t like it,” Natasha agreed.

Clint stood to speak, pocketing his cell phone when the roar of an explosion, causing the building shaking with the force and sent the Avengers to the ground. Clint was standing instantly as the klaxons blared and the demand for the triage trained agents to get to the sector. “Stark,” Captain Rogers began (because no more Steve, now wasn’t the time), but Tony was already heading out.

“Get to the safe zone,” he stated and pat Bruce’s shoulder as he passed, already focused on getting out of there.

The rest move toward the sector, Clint tossing the earpieces to each of them before he slots his own into his ear once more, heading to work. They mostly sort out the worst from the least, though Bruce and Natasha also get to help rescue teams extract people from the rubble when Clint suddenly pauses in getting more stretchers, fingers pressing to his earpiece. “10-4,” he answered and stood.

“You’re going to be down one Cap,” Clint stated and tore off, taking the quickest, and probably not safest, path away before Rogers had a chance to protest.

“Let him go,” Natasha ordered and he sighed, but let it go.

If Clint was tearing off, it was important.

“Agent Coulson, stop moving!” a voice ordered and all three looked over to see Coulson trying to get off a stretcher.

He was mostly successful, forcing the medics to stop to try and keep him on, despite the straps that were keeping him in place, an obviously broken wrist (or was it his _arm_?) and some scratches down the left side of his face. There was also a possible break to his left foot, with the way he was keeping his weight to the right.

Natasha stalked over and said, “Forgiveness over permission.”

Before Rogers could stop her, she trapped Coulson to the stretcher, took the left wrist, trapped it to the stretcher, and _yanked_ the strap over it. Coulson let out a hiss of pain and Natasha waved her hand at a glowering medic.

“It was either this or his entire body giving out on him from pain once he achieves his objective,” Natasha stated and went back to helping rescue teams.

Rogers shook his head and focused on the injured, finding the ones he should send forward with medics as they became available, the people piling around them.

Steve found the shiny blankets that helped stave off shock when he heard Bruce’s strangled sound he made when something shocked him and the Other Guy was close to coming out.

He looked up to see Clint helping to carry a stretcher out that had a small, somehow still conscious girl on a stretcher. She was maybe nine, at best, and the blanket they had tucked around her to stave off shock wasn’t one of the shiny ones.

It took Steve a while to realize that part of the blanket was Coulson’s suit jacket. The rest was an actual blanket and Clint, while holding the stretcher with one hand, had the other carefully cradling her face. “Hey baby girl, don’t you worry, everything’s going to be fine, I promise. And I’ve never broken a promise, have I?” Clint was saying, repeating it softly and continuously, though occasionally ‘baby girl’ was substituted with ‘eyas’.

He paused when he realized he was being stared and looked up, fear pinching his eyes. “I’ll explain later, I promise and Bruce, it is…not as bad as it looks. I’ll explain everything just…later,” Clint explained quickly and was soon walking out with the medics.

Natasha rolled her shoulders and pursed her lips slightly before she focused someone she could help. “Let’s hope whoever set those charges is dead,” she stated.

“Why?” Steve asked and Natasha carefully tightened a bandage on a man’s head before sending him off with someone who was limping a little to get him to the safe zone.

“When she was four, she was kidnapped. Clint hunted the man who actually grabbed her down, grabbed them from the street, trapped them in a basement in the middle of nowhere in a house scheduled for demolition, and decided to force information from him. He first drove an arrow into the man's knee and then twisted when the man didn't tell. He did this to various joints till the man broke and told Clint everything he knew. Clint took it at face value, but if the man had lied, I am sure Clint would have broken him out of SHIELD and done worse,” Natasha answered calmly.

Steve paled slightly while Bruce just gave a nod. “People who harm children deserve that and worse,” he answered calmly, though the tinge of green in his eyes sort-of broke any illusion there was that he was actually calm.

Steve just focused on the people, while privately deciding he needed to look up ‘eyas’ and that he should never ask Natasha for clarification again.

**Author's Note:**

> I, originally, had a much more comprehensive timeline.
> 
> However, plot stuff happened and the timeline, omitting some key points, became a moot point.
> 
> The 'one month' thing Clint mentions is after they start having 'villains of the week', or they are needed constantly to the point that Clint and Natasha aren't getting as many missions as before.
> 
> Phil started physical therapy for rebuilding his muscles (that are not his lungs) started nearly two months after waking up (aka, Elizabeth is 8 years 2 months or thereabouts). Whether this is longer then normal or less then normal, I hand wave for plot (we can't use Tony as an example of 'sternum broken apart and open' in correlation to moving around, because I'm sure he did it through sheer damn stubbornness), so three months after the end of the Avengers.
> 
> They started get villains because the Avengers or part of them would make every call and, you know, that always brings out the crazies, because the challenge.
> 
> (What fun is it if no one challenges you?)
> 
> 'One Wore Blue, One Wore Gray' takes place a five months after 'Secrets.'
> 
> So, 7/12.
> 
> I don't do holidays often, but their Christmas was adorable.
> 
> Thus, this one takes place five months after that, about, or...12/12.
> 
> That's right.
> 
> It is almost her birthday again.
> 
> And she will be 9 and it will be adorable.
> 
> Also, I am not excluding Thor on purpose. It is he gets distracted by Loki issues back on Asgard and I just don't see Clint hanging out with him that often because...Loki issues.
> 
> *grins*
> 
> Plot is fun.


End file.
